This a movie review of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD.

“Then who killed the world?” The Splendid Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley)It was worth the 30-year wait. Vehicular mayhem on an unpredicted scale. Take that final chase in MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR and have it stretched out over two pulse-hammering hours, and you have something close to this fourth instalment (newbies, don’t fret, no prior knowledge is required). Add in leanly crafted characters, which skilfully speak volumes even though restricted to minimal dialogue, make us care for the fate of the protagonists.

Just about all action and horror movies have a rhythm of heightened thrills followed by a lull, back to escalation, then respite again; a rolling set of waves utilised to avoid audience nerve deadening. But what happens if that formula is jettisoned? Director George Miller and team have fashioned an unrelenting ride, never allowing the exhalation of breath. It is a rollercoaster consisting of a film-length drop.

Tom Hardy has replaced Mel Gibson in the driver’s seat as ex-cop Max Rockatansky. He’s an ex-cop because there is no rule of law. Post-nuclear conflict over oil, bringing on the water wars, has left the Earth a barren desert. Eking out an existence of pure day-to-day survival, pockets of humanity cling to non-extinction. We are aware of this because of the previous three movies, and also because the opening credits quickly bring us up to speed. (SNOWPIERCER context efficiency is gladly a comparison.) Breathing difficulties and tumours riddle the skin of the planet’s citizens, Nux (Nicholas Hoult) even names the latter on his body, “Larry” and “Barry”.

Planting us into a dystopian future shorn of tedious preamble has a two-headed gecko, mutated one assumes due to the damaged ozone layer and cloudless skies, scurry from the foreground to under the boot of Mad Max, who then eats it. Waste not, etc. No time to digest the mutant lizard, he’s behind the wheel of his souped-up V8 interceptor pursued by the top of the human food chain: Merciless gangs in kitted out automobiles – their only thought is pillage. Quickly caught and imprisoned in a citadel run by malevolent warlord, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), as a living organ donor, hope looks to have vanished for the titular lead. Echoes of novels, such as Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ and José Saramago’s ‘Blindness’, keep in mind humanity’s fragile civility. Of course, Max is someone not to write-off; the punishment he takes over the series would make a superhero wince. If you’re going to make an environmental and sociological parable, do it exhilaratingly.

Fortuitously for Max, one of Joe’s lieutenants, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron – rightly given equal billing), is on her way with the community’s war rig to do a gasoline and ammunition run across hostile territory. Fortuitously, because Furiosa goes rogue. Going off piste, she has freed the slave wives of Joe:- The Splendid Angharad (Huntington-Whiteley),- Toast the Knowing (Zoë Kravitz),- Capable (Riley Keough),- The Dag (Abby Lee) and- Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton).What names!These are no damsels in distress, nor narrative cyphers, they breathe as steely characters. No excuse now, if there ever was one, not to have action blockbusters have such badass female participation. Wait till you get to the fisticuffs between Max, Furiosa, Nux and the wives. And then the arrival of the "many mothers".Alliances get forged and lines in the sand drawn to gleefully destructive effect.Sh*t just got real people.

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